In closing, if you would like to see an earlier dollar bill project that is still going on, check out this earlier blog post: Dollar Bill Art is so Money.

I wrote a piece on Twitter’s future that I posted on iCrossing’s ‘Great Finds’ blog.  The post discusses Twitter’s ubiquity, how Twitter could become the mobile equivalent of PayPal, helpful 3rd party software, Speed, and how people are connecting these days.  Instead of regurgitating all the same stuff again, just click over and have a quick read…You will surely enjoy it:

http://greatfinds.icrossing.com/twitter-grows-up/

If you are interested, have a look at my Twitter account and follow along if you would like.

I do have to give credit to Ralph Zenger who drew a cactus face while we were in Chicago last month, and ever since then I have been infactuated with drawing different cactus people.

If you are a fan of American Football, you surely noticed that Chad Johnson legally changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco.  His jersey number is 85, and his nickname was always Ocho Cinco.  So, ala World B. Free (reader - remember that guy?) he decided to get rid of the ‘nick’ and make it his official name.   

Besides being a piece of brilliant self-promotion, this is going to change the face of how marketers engage with athletes!  Watch for corporations to start buying the names of athletes across all sports.

If you are involved in marketing in anyway, start talking to your clients about ‘Personal Brand Names’ (Reader - If you or your clients have not heard of PBN before, it’s because I just coined it.)  Naming a sports stadium is one thing, but taking ownership of an athlete’s name is a whole new level of sports marketing.  Imagine Brett Farve being offered $$$ to change his name to Brett Fritos for a year, or Donovan McNabb changing his name to Donovan McNike.  Think of the bonuses that could be structured into a deal if your company’s name makes it into the Super Bowl on the back of a quarterback’s jersey…that’s huge! 

This is not limited to football.  All sports will work…just look at Tennis.  Announcers address the players by their last name, and those names get said A LOT.  Pete Sampras going to Pete Samsonite would have been classic back in the day:

“…and Samsonite zips one down the line.”
“Samsonite outlasted the competition today!”

 Of course, the PBN branding could go the other way during a game:

“Samsonite is being shredded at the net today.”
“From the beginning Samsonite looked bad and lost often.” 

The old method of marketing is dead and corporations are trying harder and harder to pry their way into the content itself.  PBNs are one of those entry points that shoots right to the heart of our content.  Invasive - hell yes!  Responsable - hell no! 

This practice will be viewed more like Spam and less like Relationship Marketing.

Is there a big future in PBNs?  What happens if a player is involved in a crime…can the corporation take back their name?  Corporations are losing control of their brand…is this another step in that direction?  There are more questions than answers at this point, so please comment and let me know where you think this is going.

Someone once said that you can tell a lot about a person from an anagram of their name.  I just found out that ‘I, A beer crew urge’ is an anagram of my full name.  Other such anagrams from my name:

I grew a beer cure.  A brewer ice urge.  Beware: rice urge.  Ace beer wire rug.  A beer cure we rig.

If you are curious about what comes from your name, have a spin here.

I’m off for a Pint…

I was in Chicago with the Creative Leadership Team a few weeks ago, and as part of the evening festivities we took them to The Second City for a little comedy.  As part of the routine the comedy group did an improv exercise they called Freeze. 

Here is how Freeze works:  Two comedians get up and start to improvise a scene.  At any moment, any other comedian can yell ’freeze’ and s/he then gets up and taps one of the original two on the shoulder and replaces them.  From there, the new comedian continues the story with the one comedian remaining.  The routine moves quickly, it’s funny as hell and it is great to see all the creative minds at work.

Fast-forward to the next morning.  I woke up with a mean hangover (it must have been those ’special’ margaritas from the Mexican restaurant) and was getting ready to put the finishing touches on a brainstorming session I was going to lead the creative leadership team through.  After popping two Excedrin and giving my temples a rub, it hit me - The Freeze would work perfectly as the backbone for my brainstorming session!  I scrapped my plans (which included some of my earlier thoughts on brainstorming)  and went with my gut.  The brainstorming topic was innovation, so why not walk the walk.

Here is how I structured the brainstorming:

• Two people got up to talk about creative innovation in the workplace.  It was encouraged for them to be in character…this loosens people up and gets the ideas flowing better.  Laughter is amazing that way.

• Anyone could yell freeze, take the place of one person, and start sharing their ideas through the performance.  You might need to facilitate even participation from the entire group.

• If someone wanted to join in the conversation and not ‘tag’ someone out, that was fine.  We had 4 people up on stage at one point.

• Instead of having a designated note taker, which I normally do, I had everyone take notes.  Because people were in character and often speaking through analogies, there were different takes on a single comment.

• After 15 minutes of ‘Freeze Brainstorming’, I broke everyone into pairs and had them work on expanding the ideas presented, as well as any new thoughts that came out of further discussion.  Try pairing opposites together as much as possible - it yields better results more often than not. 

• The pairs worked for 30 minutes.

• Everyone came back together, and each pair presented their ideas.  All ideas were put up on the board.

• There was open discussion about the ideas and a solid set of next steps were developed.

Overall, the brainstorming session was a great success.  The ideas were plentiful and very strong, and the attitude in the room was upbeat and fun - which is uber-important when in these settings.  With all that said, when I conduct another Freeze Brainstorming, I will experiment with a few things:

• Adding more structure to the on-stage improv scene.  It was a little too wide open, and those less comfortable with getting on-stage and going into character focused more on that than the ideas.  I could have set the scene as ‘two people sitting in a cafe preparing for an upcoming board meeting on innovation.’  I’m not sure if this will be an improvement, but it is worth trying it out.

• Like the game ‘telephone’, I want to see what happens if I start with one person and once they have told their part of the story they pass it on to the person next to them.  Again, this is a more linear process and might not have the dynamics of the multi-person dialogue.  Of course, I might try doing both if time permits.

• Keep the on-stage Freeze game moving quicker, and make sure to call it quits when things start slowing down.

In closing, keep this in mind whenever you are doing any kind of brainstorming - No matter how good your idea generating techniques are, you always need to mix it up.  Once your brainstorming process becomes routine to a group, the pool of ideas suffer.  I have come up with what I thought were ideal brainstorming methods, but the more I ran a single approach with a given team the less effective it became.  Keep things new and fresh, and your team will return the favor!

We just finished a pitch recently where we used dollar bills as the canvas for the clients marketing message, and that got me thinking about scanning and posting these.  Enjoy!

Holly Molly.

Here is a very practical built in tip calculator.

Nice use of the edges.

Could be hard to laminate, but what else do you expect from a handbag lover.

Harder than it looks.  Some serious time and patience!

This one takes it old school.

Interesting commentary with a dash of white wash.

Here’s to the colorful people!

Let’s get political…and angry.

The gold leaf looks a lot nicer in person!

My 5 year old was one of the first to get into the act

Self promotion from Alon.

This is a lot of writing.

Taking it all apart and putting it back together differently.

Lights, Camera, Attraction:

Dress Up Now:

Could Cause Bodily Charm:

When I read about a new Fire Fox plug-in today, an ironic smile slid across my face!  A part of business I do is rich media banner campaigns and to think that it might all go away in the name of art left me with a bitter-sweet residue (reader: honestly, it was much more sweet than bitter.)  Take a look at this plugin - as you browse the web, it covers all the advertising banners with artwork.  Brilliant!!

So what’s next?  A program that allows for the theft of such artwork?  Or maybe a virtual street team that travels more on the darker side of the web ‘tagging’ the content (get it) and engaging in Wild Postings that re-brand the artwork with the original advertiser? 

Digital warfare could be upon us any day now, with plug-ins factions fighting widget militants for pixel real estate.

I was on the road this week working through a series of creative strategy sessions with one of our better clients, and we got into several long discussions about what makes a well designed site.  In this case the business objectives are focused more on Sales (ROI), so that’s where the conversation went.  Here is a summary of the items we tossed around over drinks, through the hallway and in several different conference rooms:

Simple.  Simplicity is your friend and white space is your lover.

Some clients will fight for everything to be on the homepage.  In most cases 80% of the people want 20% of the content, so keep your focus on the valuable information or user abandonment will take over.

How about some order.  Don’t create a rat’s nest if you don’t have to. 

A successful web language will have an organized structure of content, economize items on the page so users get maximum value from the least number of cues, and understand user’s capabilities and match that with the sites presentation layer.  You will need to address content layout, consistency, navigability, legibility, symbolism, color, and texture.

Color.  A little color goes a long way.
 

Most sites you see use too much color - which adds to user confusion.  You will do well with a limited palette that takes advantage of accents.  Don’t make this mistake:

Navigation is like breathing.  There should be no extra work involved in getting to what you want.  Don’t hide your navigation unless you are doing a site that is more exploratory and less ROI driven.

Loading strategy.  Load with intelligence.  Your initial download needs to be quick.  It is a good idea to load the most important content upfront (like your navigation,) and then load the rest of the content in the background.

Typography.  For body copy, choose a default font designed for good screen reading; e.g., Verdana, Arial, Georgia.  More creative fonts will most likely need to be an image,  so use with caution.  Image text helps establish the brand and build an emotional connection with the user.  On the flip-side, you cannot copy and paste that text, it is not as search engine friendly, and it takes longer to download.

Writing.  Keep it short!  Write with headers, fragments and bulleted information.  Use bold text in areas to prevent skimming.  Lists work well!  Links on a page add authority and keep people around longer.

Speed.  Do you remember that 3-click rule…it’s bullsh**.  The web is not about limiting clicks…it’s about finding what you need quickly with the least effort.  We are information hunters with no regard for anything that gets in the way of a direct path.

Keep client happy.  Adhere to the client’s business objectives and use them as a litmus test.

Speaking of Test.  Test, test, test.  As much as you know, you are only one person.  Usability testing, if done right, will give you your most valuable information.

There you have it…A week in the Midwest with a smart client that knows what it takes to make a good site.